For those that may have missed the special

Sorry Lucas, I didn't mean to start another thread, I thought that I was posting this under the thread for JREF (my bad).

What I would like to say in regard to the nde, and I think that this is important is that in order to be taken seriously, I truly feel that we should avoid being linked with new age or with people that claim to have special powers and so forth. These claims are easy enough to prove. Our experiences should one day have some sort of proof linked to them, but until that day comes, we should all be careful. Just sayin'.

I agree that NDEs should be separated from religion, new age, mediums, psychics etc. However in regards to testing those who claim alleged psychic abilities etc, I am concerned that often those testing people with claimed psychic abilities project their own biases and misconceptions about the phenomena onto the test conditions, making them unreliable for ascertaining the truth. I have experienced my own fair share of psychic phenomena, and each time I realized that my own previously held idea about whatever it was was completely wrong, and realized that the assumptions a lay person would also have about clairvoyance etc would also be wrong.

I think the biggest problem is that whoever decides to test such individuals often makes a lot of incorrect assumptions about the said abilities. For example "if clairvoyance is real it should be 100% accurate or it should be X,Y, or Z" or "If OBE is real then the person should be able to do X,Y and Z" or "If OBE is real it shouldn't be any different from an OBE during an NDE". It's these type of assumptions from the ignorant skeptics that can often get in the way of getting to the bottom of things, at least in some cases IMO. So I wouldn't say these abilities are easy enough to prove.

I would say that the majority of humans have experienced moments of extra sensory perception, so by experience we know that something is going on and we simply don't know how this works quite yet.

It becomes a joke when people try to claim that they can do such on a regular basis and in fact make it their job.

That John of God down in South America is a phoney, so is Van Praugh, I feel it strongly, ha! How's that for a reading. They're con men.

It's people like that, that seem to try to link themselves onto us as nders, and it's probably because we can't be shown to be false and seem to be the only legitimate phenonmenon that has a somewhat regular pattern (people dying). There are however apparitions that are not of such patterning but at least enough to where varied witnesses are responsible and not one person getting paid for producing magic that they claim to be real.

Cloe wrote:It becomes a joke when people try to claim that they can do such on a regular basis and in fact make it their job.

That John of God down in South America is a phoney, so is Van Praugh, I feel it strongly, ha! How's that for a reading. They're con men.

I can't vouch for the authenticity of John of God or Van Praagh, but I had an incredible experience with a spiritual healer earlier this year, absolutely mind blowing, so I know for a fact that there are such people who can work in ways that modern medicine does not understand to bring about immediate change in the body, and can do it on a regular basis and make their job out of it. Such people keep a fairly low profile as those who don't understand how they work are pretty quick to accuse them of fraud. At least some spiritual healers are genuine.

It is true the most people tap into ESP some time during their lives accidentally, but I think that it can become more conscious, and people can develop psychic abilities out of it with enough talent and perserverence.

I do have to say that Medium Laura sounds like a real con woman though!! Judging by her posts it looks like she has just plagiarized a whole bunch of New Age books and written her own about all the stuff she "learned" from being a medium. Of all those who claim to have spiritual gifts, I am most distrustful of mediums. I don't think they realize that most of what they channel comes from their own ego. It's interesting that the "messages" mediums receive reflect the time period and the prevailing culture at the time of the communication.Messages from the 1800s and earlier don't believe in reincarnation, whereas the more recent messages accept it, a lot of what mediums receive is driven by their own beliefs and expectations.

Like they said in the special, people seem to want it to be true.

I didn't believe in any sort of life after death, but I continued after I died and that's what convinced me. It wasn't any sort of placebo I can assure you.

We have will, and that's something that even medical doctors have to deal with when it comes to saving our lives or curing us of some sort of illness. If we don't want to get better or survive then we can choose to leave these body, end of this story.

Con artists learn to manipulate us through our wills and then those that have been manipulated believe that it's the con artist that was able to cure them or whatever, but it's you and it's been you the whole time, whether medical or otherwise.

Thing is, our bodies at times do indeed need assistance and that's through chemical adjustments and hands on repair,.. the operator is a whole other story and sometimes Eastern practices come in handy (as you may know, I'm a big advocate of meditation, my kids meditate as it's something that I've passed along to them)but when people come along and say that they can talk to the dead or cure you, they are full of hogwash.

We should try to remember that babies and small children come down with horrible illnesses and diseases and mutations, and these require western medicine techniques because it's their bodies that need help.

Cloe wrote:Con artists learn to manipulate us through our wills and then those that have been manipulated believe that it's the con artist that was able to cure them or whatever, but it's you and it's been you the whole time, whether medical or otherwise.

That's not always true, granted some illnesses are purely psychosomatic and in those cases the placebo effect can take effect. In other cases spiritual healers can actually have some sort of measurable effect that cannot be attributed to any sort of placebo. I speak from experience. The con artists do seem to outnumber the genuine healers though.

Cloe wrote:Thing is, our bodies at times do indeed need assistance and that's through chemical adjustments and hands on repair,.. the operator is a whole other story and sometimes Eastern practices come in handy (as you may know, I'm a big advocate of meditation, my kids meditate as it's something that I've passed along to them)but when people come along and say that they can talk to the dead or cure you, they are full of hogwash.

Most forms of spiritual healing are eastern practices. No genuine healer promises anything nor guarantees any sort of cure from a healing. Nobody can guarantee a cure, not even medical doctors.

Cloe wrote:We should try to remember that babies and small children come down with horrible illnesses and diseases and mutations, and these require western medicine techniques because it's their bodies that need help.

I WAS one of those babies born with a horrible disease and mutation and had it fixed by one of those "conmen", which was just as well, as I am sure the medical route would have been much less effective. I can assure you there was no placebo effect and was as real as your NDE. It only happened at the start of this year. After it happened there was a shift in my understanding of how our bodies work, there is definitely more too it than what meets the eye, and definitely more than Western medicine is aware of.

Wayne does Reiki, among many other things. I wonder if he thinks of himself as a conman. Perhaps we should get him on here. He probably has something to contribute to the topic.

I WAS one of those babies born with a horrible disease and mutation and had it fixed by one of those "conmen", which was just as well, as I am sure the medical route would have been much less effective. I can assure you there was no placebo effect and was as real as your NDE. It only happened at the start of this year. After it happened there was a shift in my understanding of how our bodies work, there is definitely more too it than what meets the eye, and definitely more than Western medicine is aware of.

What was your “horrible disease and mutation”, that was “fixed”? You could win the guy or gal a miliion dollars. Or, there's quite a few children's hospitals that could use this persons ability, don't you think? Just one children's hospital will do it! Cure all the children and I'll bet that it makes international news!

I'm from a pagan culture that believed in fire balls and Kahunas that could cause death and cure you of any and all illnesses.

My great grandmother was a dancer for the Queen and because she became a born again christian, she died of gangrene that started on her little toe that she believed would be cured by her new god so she refused western medicine.

There's a lot to human will, yes. But one thing we shouldn't do and I firmly feel this strongly is give in to fear, yes "fear" and fall for nonsensical hocus pocus, but instead seek out how it works if at all.

Instead of believing that there's some sort of divine mumbo jumbo that's going to take care of us and the planet, we have to figure out how this works without the fear.

Have you ever wondered why no one actually will ask apparitions "how are you guys doing that?",.. as we don't have that technology to walk through walls or change a rooms temperature without turning on the air conditioner. Why are we so damn afraid to ask? What are we afraid of? Do we not want to know the answers and prefer believing that it's divine or whatever divine is?

Just maybe these apparations are to check how advanced we are? Maybe they're here to see how superstitious we still all are? Maybe when we grow up and truly try to find these answers then just maybe we'll actually know a thing or two.

But in my opinion, giving in to these cons is fear, and it says a lot about our species and that is that we're still adolescents.

I for one have wanted to know how my nde was possible and I have searched in all sorts of avenues and I have never left it up to some sort of power that be, because quite frankly we can know this stuff if we continue to search.

Wayne does Reiki, among many other things. I wonder if he thinks of himself as a conman. Perhaps we should get him on here. He probably has something to contribute to the topic.

Wayne seems to have gone in the direction that I did when I was younger following my experience. I attended several christian denominations and I befriended wiccans and couple of satanists, even a druid (yes I actually found one). I also learned from my last step-father (he was a kahuna) some of his trade because I sincerely wanted to know how this works, as I'm rather sure that Wayne does too.

Cloe wrote:

I WAS one of those babies born with a horrible disease and mutation and had it fixed by one of those "conmen", which was just as well, as I am sure the medical route would have been much less effective. I can assure you there was no placebo effect and was as real as your NDE. It only happened at the start of this year. After it happened there was a shift in my understanding of how our bodies work, there is definitely more too it than what meets the eye, and definitely more than Western medicine is aware of.

What was your “horrible disease and mutation”, that was “fixed”? You could win the guy or gal a miliion dollars. Or, there's quite a few children's hospitals that could use this persons ability, don't you think? Just one children's hospital will do it! Cure all the children and I'll bet that it makes international news!

My horrible disease and mutation was fetal thyrotoxicosis. You seem to displaying attributes that I mentioned above in an earlier post. You are making the assumption that if any kind of spiritual healing exists, the healer must be able to heal a whole hospital of sick kids, nothing could be further from the truth. Intention is a part of it, nobody can be healed against their will, which is why the children's hospital scenario would not prove anything. That is not to say it is purely the placebo effect though, either. There are a ton of variables influencing the effectiveness of a healing as well, which is why no genuine healer promises anything. People think that if they are legitimate they must be some sort of magician with magic powers. That's a misconception.

Cloe wrote:

My great grandmother was a dancer for the Queen and because she became a born again christian, she died of gangrene that started on her little toe that she believed would be cured by her new god so she refused western medicine.

There are no Gods to heal anybody, faith plays absolutely no role in healing, any healing comes about as a result of cause and effect, spiritual healers work on a deeper level of causality that most people are oblivious to.

Cloe wrote:There's a lot to human will, yes. But one thing we shouldn't do and I firmly feel this strongly is give in to fear, yes "fear" and fall for nonsensical hocus pocus, but instead seek out how it works if at all.

I did exactly that, see if it works and I can tell you it was an eye opener

Cloe wrote:Instead of believing that there's some sort of divine mumbo jumbo that's going to take care of us and the planet, we have to figure out how this works without the fear.

Well, the genuine spiritual healers do not believe in any such divine mumbo jumbo that is going to take care of us and the planet, that's another misconception. They do not summon a benevolent deity to come and heal people, they work on a deeper level of causality that most people are not aware of. So they are more like mechanics than Christian priests etc.

Cloe wrote:
Have you ever wondered why no one actually will ask apparitions "how are you guys doing that?",.. as we don't have that technology to walk through walls or change a rooms temperature without turning on the air conditioner. Why are we so damn afraid to ask? What are we afraid of? Do we not want to know the answers and prefer believing that it's divine or whatever divine is?

Well the healer I saw spent about 40 minutes explaining exactly how she does it and it certainly wasn't mumbo jumbo, I had several questions and she answered them all. Then she did the healing, that was the interesting part, the proof was in the pudding.

It really does sound like placebo. Medical doctors have to deal with getting the person on board for their treatments to work sufficiently, so it's not like this isn't known.

Children that are currently dying or dealing with a horrid infliction, I would guess do indeed want to get better. It should then be easy for these so called healers to prove their techniques.

To many it's actually their bodies that are breaking down and no matter how much they meditate or witch doctors shake around or what not, their bodies will not get better because it may be reaching its particular equilibrium toward decay.

The guilt that may be put on these people however is hideous as to say that they are responsible for their illnesses is a dangerous generality in my opinion, as not always and many times, it is plainly not any of their fault.

Btw Lucas, you know, a lot of children that come down with varied diseases don't even know what that disease is until it inflicts them, so the argument that we cause such inflictions is far too generalized in my opinion. Not saying that we can't get ourselves sick, we certainly can, but defininately not always.

Cloe wrote:It really does sound like placebo. Medical doctors have to deal with getting the person on board for their treatments to work sufficiently, so it's not like this isn't known.

Well I haven't really given you much information regarding my own experience, nor how this healer even works. so your assumption seems a bit premature.

Cloe wrote:Children that are currently dying or dealing with a horrid infliction, I would guess do indeed want to get better. It should then be easy for these so called healers to prove their techniques.

Well, some might want to get better, you would be surprised that some wouldn't, like you said, we can will ourselves to die. Willingness does not guarantee success of the healing. Anita for example did want to get better, but in the state of fear she was in no healing was possible, at least not pre-NDE. Willingness is just the first requirement for a successful healing, there are others.

Cloe wrote:To many it's actually their bodies that are breaking down and no matter how much they meditate or witch doctors shake around or what not, their bodies will not get better because it may be reaching its particular equilibrium toward decay.

There is a lot more to it than meditation, it's a lot more complicated than that. Positive thinking does really play any role.

Cloe wrote:The guilt that may be put on these people however is hideous as to say that they are responsible for their illnesses is a dangerous generality in my opinion, as not always and many times, it is plainly not any of their fault.

I never even mentioned anything about guilt or blame, you are making an assumption that you know what I am on about. My own illness was definitely not my fault and was not a result of anything I did, but that didn't stop it from being fixed. BTW do you know of any thyroid conditions being treated successfully with a placebo?

Cloe wrote:Btw Lucas, you know, a lot of children that come down with varied diseases don't even know what that disease is until it inflicts them, so the argument that we cause such inflictions is far too generalized in my opinion. Not saying that we can't get ourselves sick, we certainly can, but defininately not always.

The idea that people think certain diseases into existence just with their awareness of the disease is pure fiction. Another of your misconceptions. I didn't really cause my own illness, nor did I even have an awareness of it until recently. That didn't stop it from happeneing, nor did it stop it from being fixed.

Lucas,

What are you trying to say? Are you making a claim that your healer has supernatural powers? If so, that should be easy enough to prove.

Were you medically diagnosed?

There's several claims, but it seems that when put to the test that they never seem to pan out. Why is that? Is it because we want to believe, thus we look the other way?

If you were actually healed by paranormal means then we need to know how exactly that is done.

Like I said, we seem to be too frightened to ask. I gave the example of ghosts. We never ask them how they can walk through walls or make a room cold. We know that various particles such as electrons can tunnel through barriers, we know the laws of thermodynamics, so exactly how is it done? We're not going to get those answers by being frightened of posing the questions. If your healer is legitimate then let her ask the questions and give our society the answers as to how it is done. It should be simple?

Admin wrote:Wayne does Reiki, among many other things. I wonder if he thinks of himself as a conman. Perhaps we should get him on here. He probably has something to contribute to the topic.

I do reiki and practice shamanism. I consider Reiki a side practice and do not practice it in the fashion Reiki teachers teach it. As to how shamanism works it works exactly the same way "modern" medicine works. In both cases medical doctors and shamans activate the inner healer in a person's body. You see, a person must heal their biological self, no one and nothing can do that from the outside. A doctor can set a bone but the body must knit it back together. A doctor can prescribe medicine but the medicine only stimulates the body to produce more or less of something needed to facilitate healing. Emotional and psychological issues are similarly "healed." I have never healed anyone and no doctor in all of history has ever healed anyone, we only awaken the inner healer. It can be argued it is all placebo effect but that is simply a way of dismissing what is not understood and viewing with tunnel vision.

That's a really good point, Wayne, as even with babies, someone is there to touch the baby making the baby aware that they are wanted, which could be what stimulates them to want to remain in this world.

But sometimes the person will die no matter how much they want to live or that others want them to live, so the body itself has to help out in that regard along with whatever medical assistance is available. In example, I read a recent article in which researchers are now working with the drug ectasy against cancers. They say that the amount needed to kill cancers will also kill the human, but they are working in correcting that balance, so that this drug they believe will be able to conquer cancers at a 100%. It should be available in ten years they predict. They believe that ectasy goes after the fat in cancer cells and thereby kills the cancer.

That type of medical advancements can certainly help the human being in its fight for life.

In regard to those that claim to be healers, what do they do in actuality? That John of God does the same scam that has been going on for so long that I'm surprised that anyone believes him. He does those spiritual operations where he makes it look like he's operating but is really doing a slip of the hand and appears to be pulling out organs which are actually pig parts. The claim is that he doesn't ask for any money, but the fact is that he lives very lavishly and has charges against him for attacking women.

Great post Wayne!! That was more or less what I was trying to get across. Things that work with energy are a set of tools that those with experience can utilize, much in the same way we use all the tools modern medicine has to offer us. It is not magic, and like you said, you need to awaken the person's inner healer, and if someone does not want to heal and their illness serves them for whatever reason, they won't heal, nothing any healer can do anything about.

My own experience was with a healer that uses clairvoyance to observe and correct imbalances in the chakras along the Sushumna channel. During the healing and after it I experienced too many validating things to even consider that the whole experience was just mumbo jumbo or some sort of placebo.

Firstly as she observed each chakra I could actually feel sensations within each chakra and could feel each chakra pulsate as she changed the color/adjusted it. It felt like several hearts beating up my spinal column. Next, when she reached the throat chakra after it began to pulsate I felt something shrink inside my neck.

After the healing I had a bit of a feel in my neck and my goiter which could easily be felt previously was gone, it had shrunk back down to size as soon as the energy in the chakra had been corrected. It was immediate. Hormone levels took 6 to 8 weeks to return to normal, though, as is the case with modern medicine, but I have never heard of enlarged goiters shrinking instantly by means of modern medicine.

Also, during a healing it is common for the healer to see either see symbols/thought forms in the chakra or see visions in the chakra often pertaining to how the chakra became out of balance. After the healing she told me the most relevant things she saw while observing the chakras. She told me she saw me break my leg on some stairs in a subway and that afterwards I had a blue knee brace on my right knee.

That was pretty validating for me as I had broken my leg about 18 months prior to the healing in exactly the same way she described it and had had a blue knee brace on my right knee. At the time of the healing my leg was completely healed, I had no crutches, no knee brace, not even a limp, though I did occasionally get a sore knee. I hadn't told her about having broken my leg as it seemed irrelevant as I wanted to have the thyroid fixed, and she would have had no way of knowing that beforehand.

It would be nice to see some proper scientific studies done on healing methods such as this one as well as shamanic healing methods, but I doubt that would happen as those conducting the studies would have little understanding of how such things could even have an effect on the physical body, and therefore would have little interest in researching something that they would assume to be nonsense. I'm pretty sure there is relatively little research being conducted in the area of alternative healing methods in contrast to pharmaceuticals.

James Randi's million dollar challenge would be a complete waste of time though, as he gets to dictate the test conditions and the way the ability is to be proven for something he has absolutely no knowledge of. He also does not accept any explanation of how the said ability works from the applicant. That's only one reason why nobody has ever claimed the prize, there are countless others. James Randi is a fraud IMO.

Let's hope that Wayne is okay up there in Virginia, as they just had an earthquake (5.9 for close to a minute).

I like James Randi, I feel that he's a good man. I'd guess that he'd hold his skepticism against my experience as well and so he should, as I'm the one that had it and not he, so I'm the one responsible to supply proof and I fully realize that, and thus why I search.

People claiming to know the answers and being able to talk to the dead or know the future or are capable of healing need also supply the proof and it doesn't matter how stringent the tests are, as in if it's true, then it should by reason be provable.

I would think that the near death experience should be in particular interest to many in science because it means survival without resource needs, and that means that we should be able to transfer consciousness if we can capture those selves that we consider our person. It should be of tremendous interest to those in fields such as artificial intelligence or extensions of life. A field or force that can survive without resources should provoke some interest imo.

Curing chakras sounds like hypnosis imo. You have to believe that you have chakras in the first place.

I was surprised how much can be affected and "cured" through hypnosis, after I attended a show by a hypnotist in Las Vegas. He explained how hypnosis can be used. It was quite an eye opener.

It wasn't hypnosis nor any sort of placebo. I had my own expectations of the immediate effects of the healing, and they were only partly met. My hands were completely numb at the time of the healing, I had carpal tunnel syndrome at the time as a symptom of the thyroid dysfunction, and after the healing the first thing I checked was my hand's and they were still numb, but they were back to normal in about 2 weeks. Hypnosis would not explain the clairvoyant vision of me breaking my leg, though.

I wasn't in any sort of focused state during the healing, she told me to relax and try not to think as thinking makes the healing difficult.

Chakras are very real, and can be easily felt during energy work, meditation and yoga. I was interested in this type of healing because I had discovered my own chakras just by doing a simple exercise I found in a youtube video, I was bored so I tried it and was shocked that I was able to make them pulsate so easily. I didn't really have any belief in chakras prior to that point.

Hey Lucas, while you're on, is there any way that we can receive notifications of responses? I keep this site on as a favorite so I can zip right to it, but it would easier if I knew if I should.

Well, I don't believe in chakras. I do however know that this is interconnective and we can in fact pick up information on one another, but I would be suspicious of your healers accuracy as in your "blue" cast or whatever.

It may be that when we pick up events that are about to happen or did happen without previous knowledge time could experience some sort of a flux and we happen to be the receiver as we're in that period of time that fluxed. There's an explanation, but we're still in our infancy and sometimes act accordingly.

I don't like the way that people use what we don't currently understand in order to manipulate others into thinking that they hold some sort of secret to survival.

You know, I could walk you into a home and you would think of it as rooms constructed out of particular materials, or I could walk you inot a home and tell you that it's haunted and you would in likelihood see it quite differently.

I get notifications for posts, not sure why you don't. see if you can change the settings on your profile. I will have a look and see if I can turn them on in the admin panel.

Regarding chakras, try doing some energy work and then you can make up your own mind.

Why would you be suspicious of the healers accuracy? I'm sure Wayne could add something on the vision aspect, and possibly the existence of the energy body/chakras. Like Wayne said in his NDE account every memory, thought, cell division emotion etc is recorded, and there seems to be a great amount of data recorded in the energy body, which is my experience from doing energy work, and it would also explain the memories of organ donors being experienced by the recipient.

I received your pm notification but I don't have any area on my profile for posts notification. I can scroll down to where it says "skype" and that's at the end.

I believe in bedside manner, as in if medical doctors act like human beings with sympathy and sincere concern then the patient benefits. We're generally social creatures and we like attention and when others care about us. United we stand divided we fall, aint far off as to how our species has survived, so others altruims toward us is greatly appreciated many times.

Some however seem to want to try to make that a business to which I feel is particularly detrimental to the near death experience as they seem to try to incorporate us into this arena of quite frankly charlatan rich (literally) crowd.

I don't believe in chakras, as if you really wanted to, you could make your little toe tingle.

but could you enlarge your thyroid gland and and shrink it back down again in a matter of seconds WITHOUT getting into some sort of highly charged focused emotional state, perhaps while thinking about a football game? Try it and tell me if you are successful.

Chakras/energy/reiki have quite a large experiential component to them, so to simply reduce to a product of the mind does not adequately explain it IMO.